Patricia Routley: One of the successes in our garden has been the species Rosa roxburghii plena I initially struck the rose from cuttings from the Pinjarra Heritage Rose Garden and planted it in full sun but probably too close to the karri. It survived there for a few years but when I saw it was not thriving, and indeed seemed to be growing backwards (read dying!), I struck another piece from it in 2003 and put the second plant in the garden in some far better soil. Then forgot about it. No water, no ferty, no pruning. Only an occasional glance as the years passed and I noticed a flower now and then. These days I make a point of stopping to pay homage. My little cutting has now made a very respectable bush 3m wide by 2m tall and is stretching itself out over a path - I’ll move the path! The beautifully coloured Maple is now shading it more than the rose would like, but both tree and rose are going to have to co-exist as they are equally as lovely. Forgetting about the rose for those years was the right thing to do as it does take years for R. roxburghii to start to produce its blooms. You wouldn’t really pick the bush as a rose because the leaves are so different with up to eleven roundish-to-oblong leaflets and the whole graceful drooping shrub looks like a giant maidenhair bush. Up until 1916 the bush was known as Rosa microphylla. Micro (small) phylla (leaf). If you look deep inside the bush you see the older thicker branches have gray-brown bark that flakes off leaving a whitish surface underneath. The newer branches are purple to brown. The other really different thing about this rose is that it has slightly flattened chestnut-like hips like knobbly, prickly depressed globes, so noticeable that it gained synonym names of the Burr Rose and the Chestnut Rose. Even the sepals protecting the bud, are covered with bristles. The prickles are a bit different also, occurring in straight 5mm pairs at the base of each leaf node and they point upwards. True! It is not until we get to the flower that it is evident this beautiful bush really is a rose. Very double, up to 6cm wide, a deep lilac pink paling slightly on the edges, short pedicels and borne solitary or in small clusters of 2 or 3, at the tips of the branches. The double form R. roxburghii plena was introduced from China in 1824 by William Roxburgh, director of the botanical garden in Calcutta and by 1839 it was common in Gardens in Bombay. However, it wasn’t until 1916 that the name R microphylla was dropped in favour of R. roxburghii. There is a single form called R. roxburghii normalis that had been found (long after the double form) by a Russian man Carl Maximowicz in Japan in 1862 and was pictured in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in 1881. This single form, exactly the same, but just five petals is in the Adelaide Botanical gardens, but I am content to have the double (plena) form in my garden.

Translation:Rosa roxburghii Tratt / Rosa roxburghii plena Rehder: Description ... This rose was introduced in England in 1824 by William Roxburgh, director of the botanical garden in Calcutta. It likely came from China. As is often the double one was known in Europe before returning to the original form of nature which was then called a 'normalized'